Friday, June 27, 2008

"Hello In There" Part II: Crying not mandatory

(This is a follow up to the below post, so unless you like to Pulp Fictionalize everything, I suggest reading that post before this one.)

Would you believe that last post was an intro? I *barely* broached the point I was going to make. RAMBLING VERBOSITY IS WHY I AM SO POPULAR!

The real story here is that I'm taking action to de-rut myself and try that strange thing that people do... moving forward. I'm going to stop actively sucking! To contradict myself immediately, I will continue with this post.

Big changes have come to my schedule. I finally got permission to cut my work hours back dramatically. Sad to say, it had been suffocating me. It's not that the work was hard or overly challenge...it was just there. Always. And it was early. I worked there over two years and my body never adjusted to a 9am starting time. Every day was a miserable scramble arrive somewhat close to 9am, followed by half-awake drudgery. Around 11, my body would *actually* wake up, and I'd suddenly want to conquer the planet and do something productive. That means exercise or drawing, not translating a formatted Word document into a clumsy web page. Unattended inspiration has a way of turning on its master. When stimulation fails to come, inspiration turn into fatigue. At the end of the day, regardless of how much I actually did, I was exhausted. My energy didn't start returning until midnight, when I had to sleep. DO YOU SEE THE PROBLEM HERE?

Is that last paragraph dickishly whiny? Oh, you betcha! Hey, I knew long ago what I needed to be happy and I took efforts to set my life up so I could succeed. I know I have too much stubbornness to change and fit a normal mode. I *am* too selfish, and I'm running with it!

When I took my job, it was part of the long-term plan. I needed to raise money to support myself in grad school, I wanted to learn web design skills *and* the place was wonderfully flexible with hours! Work was great to me and I hope I did enough to make my presence worthwhile. Problem is, when I went full-time, it took up way more than an extra 20 hours a week. It became my life. I became what my 15-year-old self vowed never to become!

So now I have "free time" - a term that is a filthy liar! This is the time for me to do all the soul- and future-enriching tasks that I need to survive. I'm working less but busier than ever. Oh, and since I'm now working according to my natural sleep schedule, I'm now awesome for all my waking hours. (I remain a pathetic create when asleep.) Yeehaw!

So what was the point of all this rambling? I was bored and work (and later at home) and the blog had been neglected. ENJOY MY SOUL!

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Oh, and I did locate the glorious copper hair. It is a flower among weeds, you see. If you spray a weed with herbicide, it's the flower five feet away that dies. Flowers are precious and delicate. Weed, having not been subject to eugenics, retain the hearty strength that flowers sacrificed for likability. On my face, about half a centimeter from the offending white-ish hair, is a beautiful copper hair half the size of those around it. Quality take time to grow, while garbage is available immediately. (That seriously needs to be my motto as an artist, no?)